


Whys and Whats

by ladygray99



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 03:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygray99/pseuds/ladygray99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulcahy finds he can not pray.  Or at least not pray the way he should.  When there are no other priests around he seeks out the next best thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whys and Whats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JK Ashavah (ashavah)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashavah/gifts).



Francis John Patrick Mulcahy has spent his life in prayer. The prayers of a child, the prayers of a man, and the prayers of a priest. He was taught to pray carefully by wrote. Rosaries, liturgy, books of hours. Each slipped into his mind. Into his soul.

Then war came. No more bells, no more incense. Instead screams and blood and wafting smoke. They burrowed into his mind and into his soul.

He does not know when his prayers changed but he does know when he noticed. Twenty-three hours of no rest in winter. No peace. The sounds of choppers echoing through the night.

A young man, a boy, bleeding under his hands as the nurses triaged. He knew what prayer he intended. _Dear Heavenly father, protect and save this young fighting man_. Those weren’t the words that came from his lips. Only one word slipped past and that was _why_.

There was no service that Sunday. Not with thirty-two hours of surgery behind them. Even Mulcahy couldn’t get up the energy, yet his mind was too full of horrors to sleep. He ran the words for the service through his head in crisp Latin as first taught. They were both exotic and familiar but under it, looping through the back of his mind, was still that one word. Why.

It was soon Sunday again, this one quiet, cold and dry. He took his Bible and he waited. Not many came for confession, if any at all. That bothered him at first but as weeks turned into years he found it worried him less. He knew many of the souls in camp were off committing sins they would never confess to, but as the weeks turned into years that worried him less as well.

He was more concerned with the state of his own rebellions heart and mind.

He knelt and took the beads in to his hand. Comforting and familiar, worn smooth by hours of threading through his own fingers. He made the sign of the cross and took a breath.

 _“Credo in Deum Patrem…”_

**Why?**

_“…omnipoténtem, Creatórem cæli et terræ.”_

**Why?**

_“Et in Iesum Christum,”_

**Why? Why?**

_“Fílium…”_

**Why? Why? Why!**

He flung his rosary onto the bed and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. A small part of him wished flogging hadn’t fallen so out of favor. Perhaps the pain would have driven the single rebellious question from his mind.

He strained to hear if anyone might be standing outside his door. Sometimes those desiring absolution had trouble working up the courage to knock. He could hear nothing.

“Maybe a drink,” he muttered to himself. Those who’ve imbibed a bit of alcohol seemed more willing to speak with those who have done the same.

The camp was oddly quiet as he made his way towards the Officers’ Club and he found himself pausing by the VIP tent. Sidney Freedman was in camp and was using the VIP tent as a drop in office while bedding down in the Swamp. 

He reached out his hand to knock but froze for a moment. He knew who he should be speaking to about his doubts and questions, but the nearest man of the cloth was Father Montclair at the 8063rd. A hard backed Lutheran they’d never seen eye to eye. Mulcahy knocked. Sidney’s voice brightly bid him enter.

“Well, hello Father.” Sidney was all smiles. “Wasn’t expecting you. Come to hear my confession?” Mulcahy found himself lost for words. Sidney tipped his head. “Or perhaps you need someone to hear yours?”

“I… I find myself in possession of troubling thoughts, or perhaps just a single thought.”

“Well by all means, take a seat.” Sidney gestured to one of the tent’s two chairs. 

Mulcahy sat gingerly. He realized he still had his collar on and quickly slipped in from around his neck. It didn’t feel right. “These are not easy things to discuss.”

“I understand, but I’ve been told I’m a good listener, and I’m not going to spread anything around anymore than you are.”

“I suppose our vows and oaths do overlap a bit.”

“I had an old teacher who called psychiatrists priests for atheists.”

Mulcahy chuckled a bit. He’d known a priest in seminary school who had said something similar. “I’ve found lately that I can’t seem to pray.” Sidney’s eyes went wide. “Or at least not pray the way I should.”

“So, how have you been praying?”

Mulcahy twisted his fingers around wishing he’d brought his rosary just so he’d have something to do with his hands. 

“I keep asking why?” he finally whispered. “I go to pray for the safety of the men, or for the skill of our doctors, or even to say my own daily devotions and all that comes out is why.”

“I hate to say this but I don’t think there’s a single man in this war, excluding Frank perhaps, who doesn’t ask why every minute of every day.”

“I know that.” Mulcahy jumped to his feet and wondered if he shouldn’t have just taped up his hands and taken out his frustrations on his speed bag. “But I’m a priest. I’m not supposed to ask that question. I’m the person that question gets asked to and even if I don’t have an answer I’m supposed to give some comfort.”

Sidney was silent for long moments. “You don’t have kids, do you.”

“It’s generally frowned upon for men in my profession.”

“Kids go through weird phases and stages, especially once they learn to talk. There’s the No phase where no matter what you ask them the answer will be no. Do you want to go outside? No. Do you want to take a bath? No. Do you want candy? No. Well of course they want candy but they’re just being contrary. Close on the heels of no is Why. Let’s go outside. Why? How about a bath. Why? Want some candy? Why? Doesn’t matter what you say the response is always why, and it’s worse than no because with why they are expecting an answer back.”

“I’m not a child, Sidney. I haven’t been for some time.”

“Me neither, but you are in a war, you spend every moment of every day knowing that you could die, and fear does a very good job at regressing people back to a childlike state.”

“Being scared is not much of an excuse.”

“Never said it was. Now I’ve only skimmed through your bit of the Bible but if I recall even Jesus got scared and asked for an out before the big day.” 

Mulcahy sat again, this time on the edge of the thin cot. _“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”_

“Right. So your top guy gets scared and asks for an out. Are you meant to be made of sterner stuff? Are you not allowed to get scared, ask questions, have panic attacks? Be human?”

Mulcahy had always been torn, wondering what he would have done, if he had been an apostle in that garden. If knowing what was to come if he might not have encouraged Jesus to run, to flee from such agony undeserved, and simply lead the life of a good man. “I don’t know if you’re helping.”

Sidney was silent again and the wind shook the side of the tent. “There’s a boy in recovery right now that I came up to see. He’s missing one hand and he tried to kill himself with the other.”

“Private Peterson, yes. I spoke with him before you arrived.” He was not the first suicide attempt Mulcahy had found himself attempting to comfort since arriving at the 4077th. 

“Talk about anything interesting?”

“He asked me why. I didn’t have an answer.”

“See, this is why I’ll take being a psychiatrist over a chaplain. I got the ‘what’. What now? What’s next? That at least can be answered to a certain extent. At least as far as the immediate future holds.”

“I wish I could move from one question another but my mind seems determent to ask it until I have an answer and I don’t believe one is coming.”

Sidney stood and paced slowly across the small space. “You know you’re not the first catholic priest of my acquaintance. Father John Jacob Joseph O'Malley, Father O. His church was around the corner from our synagogue when I was a kid, where two neighborhood sort of met up. There was a big dusty, empty lot that backed onto both where us kids would play ball. Some days Father O and Rabbi Mizrahi would come down and coach a bit. And Old Man Connor would umpire because he was a secular humanist.”

Mulcahy couldn’t help smiling at the image.

“One day my friends and I ran into Father O after Hebrew lessons and we’d been talking about prayer and my friend asked Father O what was the shortest prayer the Christians had. You know what his answer was?”

“No.”

“Fuck it.”

A laugh burst from Mulcahy and he slapped his hands over his mouth.

“It was the first time I’d ever heard a _respectable_ adult use that word. He explained that what it was was giving it up to God. It was saying, Lord, I’m done, ball’s in your court. It's your problem now.”

“I suppose…” Mulcahy continued to fight back giggles. “I suppose that could count as a prayer of sorts.”

“Yeah, but you know what, I like your prayer better. ‘Fuck it’ is giving up, throwing in the towel. Why is fighting. It means you’re still alive and you’re planning on staying that way for a while, and since you’re alive and kicking you might as well throw the big question out there. Plus it’s half as long.” 

“Why?” Mulcahy whispered to himself again. “Why. Isn’t it a sign of insanity to keep asking a question you know you’re never getting an answer to?”

Sidney shrugged. “How do you know you’re never getting an answer? Your guy’s been known to talk to French peasant girls. Who’s to say that an Army chaplain who has spent more than a few hours of his life up to his elbows in the blood of shot up kids won’t get an answer?”

“I…” Mulcahy stuttered out. “That… That would be a supreme act of ego to even think that the Lord might speak directly to me.”

Sidney shrugged again before pulling up a chair to sit across from Mulcahy. “This is my professional opinion. You’re not insane, and your ego is minimal, especially compared to others around here. You are a human being, a better one than most, but you are in the middle of a war. You are scared, angry, frustrated, and you are asking the most sane and reasonable question for a person in your situation to ask.”

Mulcahy dropped his face back to his hands. It was nice to know he was sane but it did not change the question that had become a never ending chant in the back of his mind.

_Attention. Attention. All personnel. We’ve got incoming five minutes out. All shifts report. It looks like it’s gonna be another long one folks.”_

Mulcahy squeezed his eyes tight. He could hear feet sprinting from tents. 

Sidney lay a hand across the back of his head as if giving a blessing of his own. “I wish I could be of more help Father, I really do.”

“Thank you for trying.” He could hear the low hum of choppers in the distance.

“I think they’re going to need both of us out there. But you didn’t get a full hour and I hate short changing patients, so let’s say we pick this up again in twenty hours or so. I’ll even raid the still beforehand, if it looks like we’re going to talk metaphysics.”

Mulcahy smiled, face still in his hands. “Thank you Sidney, I think I’ll take you up on that.”

**Author's Note:**

> During Anthony Hopkins first Inside the Actors Studio interview, when asked what his favorite curse word is, he tells the story of asking a Jesuit priest what the shortest prayer is and getting the answer 'Fuck It'.


End file.
